


The Man in the Basement

by Daisy_Morgan



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Halloween, I apologize in advance about the dog, M/M, Mild Gore, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-14 13:57:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20601938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daisy_Morgan/pseuds/Daisy_Morgan
Summary: Starsky and Hutch investigate a brutal murder.





	The Man in the Basement

“Sir, do you own a dog. Sir?” Hutch asked.

“Whatsa matter with him, do you think?” Starsky whispered into his partner’s ear.

“I don’t know. Mr. Johnson...a large dog, with yellow fur? Ring any bells?”

Johnson looked like he was going to be ill, but slowly he shook his head in the affirmative. “What...what happened to my dog, officers?”

Starsky and Hutch looked at each other, unsure of how to answer the man’s question. Finally, Hutch began, “Something, uh, got at your dog, Mr. Johnson. He was found this morning. We think it was maybe the same thing that, um, got at the woman who was killed yesterday morning. Both bodies were found in the basement.”

Johnson looked at them like either he was crazy or he thought they were. _Thing_? _Got at_?

“Well, I’m not goin’ down there, if that’s what you’re gettin' at.”

“How long has your dog been missing, Mr. Johnson?” asked Starsky, trying hard to sound casual.

“Since yesterday. When I came back from the grocery store, the door to my apartment was open and my dog was gone. I thought maybe I had forgotten to close it all the way before I left. But I don’t know how he woulda gotten in the basement.”

“Did you search for him once you realized he was missing?” Hutch asked.

“Well, now what kind of a man do you think I am, anyway?” Mr. Johnson was offended. “Of course, I looked for my damn dog! I went up and down every floor of this building and knocked on doors, walked around the neighborhood, asked all around. Nobody saw him. I was just thinkin' of how I oughta put up signs when you fellas came knockin'….”

“Did you look in the basement, Mr. Johnson?” Starsky asked, staring the man directly in the eyes.

“Did I look where, now?”

“Did you look for your dog in the basement? You said you checked everywhere….”

“Now listen to me, Officer Huffingt....”

“It's Starsky, Mr. Johnson.” He offered a helpful smile but Johnson just frowned in return.

“No, Officer Star-sky,” Johnson enunciated, “I didn’t look in the basement because I didn’t think he would BE in the basement. Because just how in the hell would my dog have gotten to the basement?” Johnson was livid. “Do you think he just trotted into the elevator and pressed the goddamn button or something? Maybe whoever killed him brought him down there afterwards, how the hell should I know!”

“Except the evidence shows he was killed in the basement,” Hutch clarified. “Just like Mrs. Henderson yesterday. She had apparently gone down there to do her laundry when...."  
  
“Mr. Johnson," Starsky interjected, "Where were you between the hours of 9-11am yesterday?”

“What the hell are you gettin' at, anyway? You think I was in that basement yesterday morning? Am I a suspect, then? You think I killed a woman and then for whatever reason, decided to kill my dog?”

“Mr. Johnson, they, uh, they found your shoe down there. We’re going to need to take you in for questioning,” said Hutch.

“My shoe! Well maybe my dog brought it down there with him! I swear on the Holy Bible I ain’t never been down in that basement! Not once since I’ve lived in this building and I’ve lived here for over three years! It’s the God’s honest truth!”

“So you’re telling us that you don’t ever go down there to do your laundry?” Starsky asked incredulously.

“No, I do not. I go to the laundromat on Third and Main when I need to do a washing. You can ask the lady that works there. I go every Tuesday at 2:30. You ask her!”

“Okay, but that still doesn’t explain why your dog was down there, or your shoe,” said Starsky.

“I don’t know how my dog got down there, I told you!”

“Then how do you explain your fingerprints on this?” Hutch asked as he held out a timeworn looking metal gadget sealed in a plastic bag.

Johnson looked at the object that Hutch was holding out before him. It was an old potato peeler. The name Dandy was embossed on it along with “Pat. Dec 30, 1913.” The old metal was buckled and rusted. His mouth gaped open as he looked at it in dawning horror.

“That was my mother’s potato peeler, it belonged to my grandmother before her. Why, I haven’t seen that in over 20 years! She accused me of losing it when I was...." Johnson trailed off, as if too horrified to finish the thought. He took a deep breath and continued. "She would make me peel the potatoes for supper...hey, just where in the hell did you get that!”

Starsky and Hutch read Johnson his rights, cuffed him, and took him down to Metro. They sat him down in Interrogation Room 7 and gave him coffee and a cigarette. His hands were shaking so badly that he could barely hold onto the cigarette, and when he took a sip of the coffee, it spilled down the front of his shirt.

“I’m telling you, there’s no way in hell I would go down in that basement. I haven’t set foot in a basement since I ran away from home when I was 15 years old. See, there was a...a..._man_ who lived in our basement, and...”

He stopped, considered, then continued on a different track, “I ran away on account of something that _happened_ in our basement, and now I rent an apartment on the top floor of my building for a goddamn reason; so I can stay as far the hell away from the basement as I can get!”

Starsky and Hutch looked at each other with quizzical expressions. He HAD to be lying. They had no other suspects.

“Aren’t you going to check out my story? That I was at the grocery store when that lady was killed?”

“Yes, sir, we have officers running a check on that now," Hutch assured him.

“So how ‘bout you tell us about the basement in the house you grew up in?” Starsky asked, genuinely curious.

Hutch looked at Starsky with an expression that said, “Hey dummy, don’t encourage him to tell us this completely irrelevant story!” but Starsky just smiled back and shrugged.

Johnson began, “When I was little, I used to have these dreams. Like, when I was two or three. They was always the same. I was in my daddy’s car in the backseat, and he was drivin' fast, but we were in the garage and it never ended. I mean, the back wall of the garage just kept receding and receding, no matter how far he drove. And there wasn’t any engine noise, neither. We were in a moving car, but it felt more like we was floating, except faster...”

For a moment, Mr. Johnson seemed lost in his thoughts.

Hutch looked at Starsky and rolled his eyes ever so slightly. “Mr. Johnson, would you like to call a lawyer?” Hutch prodded, beginning to grow impatient.

Johnson ignored Hutch and continued. “Even when it was broad daylight outside, the other end of the basement was always pitch black. So even if you stood in the playroom and turned on the light to illuminate the main room, the far end remained dark. The cold cellar was down at that end. To get there, you had to walk all the way across the main room, turn the corner to your left, and go down three steps.

Then, to turn on the light in the cold cellar, which was a single bulb in the middle of the room, you had to pull the string, which meant you first had to find it in the dark. For some reason, that’s how my granddaddy built it. Well, not just the cold cellar. He built the entire house, including the basement. Him and his six brothers. People used to do that back then. But that was a long time ago, before I was born.”

“Mr. Johnson, may I interrupt this childhood reminiscence to ask where this house was that you grew up in?” Hutch snapped.

“Why certainly. We lived in Homestead, Idaho, on a farmhouse in the middle of 35 acres of land. That’s in Washoe County.”

“Okay, thank you. Will you excuse me a moment?” Hutch went into the hallway, gave the suspect’s childhood address to the officer standing outside, and asked her to have R&I run a check.

When Hutch returned to the interrogation room, Starsky motioned for Johnson to continue.

“The basement ran the entire length of the house, you see. You entered at one end, where our playroom was. We always felt safe in there. But then there was the outer room, especially the far end and whatever lurked around the corner. That was the main problem. You could just never be sure if someone was _lurking_ there.

I know it sounds ridiculous, the notion that someone was there, but when you’re a child, it doesn’t seem ridiculous at all. After all, the back door was near the top of the basement stairs. Anyone could have come inside the house. They didn’t even have to break in, because the door was unlocked most of the time.

But also, whatever was down there in that cold cellar, I’m pretty sure it didn’t need a door to enter. It got in there another way."

At this juncture, Hutch looked at Starsky, took an exasperated breath, pointed the patented Hutchinson finger at their suspect and said “Now wait just a minute, Mr. Johnson! Are you trying to waste our time by telling us a ghost story? Do you think this is funny? You know you’re looking at a murder charge, here, at the very least!”

Starsky interjected Hutch’s near-rant to say, “I’d really like to hear the rest of his story, Hutch,” to which Hutch responded by hissing “Oh, for God’s sake! He’s only telling us this nonsense because it’s Halloween!”

“Alright, but why don’t you continue, anyway, Mr. Johnson?”

“Thank you, now where was I?” Johnson glared at Hutch. “Oh, right. How was I so sure there was someone, or something, down there? Because I SAW him. I wasn’t dreaming. I know you won’t believe me, but it’s true.

It was the summer of 1957 and my sisters and me spent every moment of daylight outside, except when it rained. On those days, we retreated down to our playroom in the basement. We even had a bathroom down there, which was most convenient. The playroom was a small room, maybe 9 feet by 10 feet, but it had two toy boxes that were built by my granddaddy for his children, a small table, and enough space for the three of us to play with our board games and Lincoln Logs and whatnot.”

Starsky and Hutch looked at each other. Starsky shrugged and they looked back at their suspect.

“Let me backtrack a little, in case I’m not making myself clear. To get to the basement, you went down the stairs from the kitchen, which was in the back of the house. When our mother washed dishes, she could look out the window and see us playing outside. But she couldn’t see us when we were in the basement. The basement door was around the corner from the sink and you would go down four steps to a landing where you could go outside to the backyard or turn a right angle and go down eight more steps to the basement.

So really, it shouldn’t have been a scary place. After all, at the top of the landing, you could turn on the light and see most of the playroom at the bottom.

It wasn’t like my best friend Henry’s basement where there were 14 steps plunging straight down into utter darkness and even if you turned on the light before going down, you could only see the landing at the bottom, not the rest of the basement. And if you walked down all those stairs and turned to see the rest of the room, it was divided into two sections. The main room was the larger side. _Cavernous_ is a good way to describe it. That room was finished with linoleum tiles on the floor and dark wood paneling on the walls, and there were fluorescent lights all across the ceiling which gave off a sickly kind of glow. And there was a funny, turquoise blue vinyl vibrating chaise, a regular ol' sofa and coffee table, and a bunch of bowling trophies. But me an' Henry never played down there much.

Then there was a doorway that took you through to _(another dimension_) an unfinished area where there was a workroom, a small bathroom, the laundry room, and a dusty, gloomy storage area hidden under the stairs. That back section was always sinister-looking and shadowy, with only a couple of light bulbs to illuminate it. And the bathroom door was always closed for some reason, so you never knew what might be in there.

So really, Henry's basement was worse. Except there was never a _man_ down there, as far as I know. So maybe ours was worse.”

Hutch sighed deeply and Starsky looked at him, pleading silently with him to be patient.

Johnson continued, almost resignedly now, “The switch to turn on the playroom light was at the top of the landing near the door to the backyard. I mean, in my basement, not Henry’s. His basement is a whole other story. But I probably won’t ever tell you about that.”

“That’s okay, Mr. Johnson,” said Starsky. “We don’t need to know about your friend’s basement.” He looked at Hutch who had started to roll his eyes again.

But Johnson seemed not to notice. “Anyway, after you turned on the playroom light, you went down the eight steps and there was our half-bathroom on the left. It’s been over 20 years since I was down there, but I remember it like it was yesterday. Some places just leave a mark on you.

I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday, but I remember our basement. I remember all the basements from my childhood.”

“That’s great, Mr. Johnson, but if you could just finish telling us about YOUR basement,” Hutch said, growing increasingly annoyed.

Their suspect glared at them and continued. “The bathroom was just an old toilet and a rusted, leaky sink, but they worked fine for us. We were just kids, what did we care. And there was this curious brown stain on the ceiling which looked like a water stain, and each year it would get a little bigger.

Now my mother, she refused to go in that bathroom. Refused. Unlike my father, who grew up in that house, my mother grew up in the big city and never had to use an outhouse or nothing, so she didn’t much care for that old bathroom. At least, that’s what she told me when I asked her once.

Now, to your right was the playroom. Keep going though, that’s where it started to get dicey.”

“Dicey?” Starsky and Hutch asked in unison.

“That’s what I said! Dicey!

The doorway from the playroom to the rest of the basement was wider than a regular doorway but it wasn’t the entire width of the room. Like it was probably seven feet wide. I never measured it. And so you could see a bit of the main room that was illuminated by the playroom light.

But you had to turn on another light to illuminate the rest of that room. Like if you wanted to see my daddy’s tools on the shelves. But even then, EVEN THEN, it was pure unadulterated blackness at the other end.

I wish I could show you a map or a drawing or something. Not a photograph though. That I would have never kept. It would be easier to explain, but I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got. I think we all try to do the best we can.”

To this, Hutch closed his eyes, as if in acknowledgement. Starsky looked at him but said nothing.

“The main room was bigger. You know, like it was most of the length of the house, a long, narrow room. Well, I guess it wasn’t that narrow. But it was longer than it was wide. Sometimes it felt like it went on forever, like you could just keep walking towards that far end and never get there, just like the garage in my dream. But of course, it did end. Probably after 50 or 60 feet. Again, I never measured it.

But unlike the garage, which just kept going on and on, receding farther away as the car moved towards the back of it, I wish to God that the far end of the basement would really have receded so I could never have reached it! Instead, that 50 or 60 feet came up like that and BAM!, I was at the end and had to turn the corner to the cold cellar.

In that main room there was an old Chesterfield sofa and a tufted vinyl armchair, ripped in places with the stuffing falling out. No one ever sat on them. The rest of the room was empty except for the shelves with my daddy’s tools.

So the cold cellar, that’s where my mother kept the fruits and vegetables. In my granddaddy's day, they didn’t have electricity or refrigeration or nothin' like that. They had an icebox in the kitchen which would keep their meat and milk cold using ice blocks from the ice man but they kept most of their produce in the cold cellar.

The ice blocks were cut from a nearby lake called Lake Solitude. The ice house was built in 1882, but it burned down in 1948. By then, people were starting to use electric refrigeration so it was never rebuilt.

When I was growing up, we had an electric refrigerator, but my mother still liked to keep the produce in the cold cellar where it would keep for months after the harvest.

If you’ve never been in a cold cellar, let me describe it to you. It’s typically a small room under the house with dirt walls and a dirt floor and is around 10-20 degrees cooler than the rest of the house….”

At this point, Hutch interrupted to say that he did indeed know what a cold cellar was. Starsky, however, did not, so he asked Johnson to continue.

“I dreaded the times when she would ask me to get potatoes or apples or whatever it was that she wanted to use for supper that night. I got them as quickly as I could, then turned tail and ran back across the basement, as fast as I could, through the main room, into the playroom, past the bathroom and up the stairs to the kitchen.

But I always felt like someone was behind me, creeping up on me slowly at first and then chasing me. Something that maybe wanted to grab onto the back of my neck with razor-sharp claws, pull me down to the ground, and devour me like I was a succulent treat, ripping the flesh from my body into neat strips with its teeth and claws, while I screamed out in pain. But there would be no sound coming from my gaping mouth and so no one upstairs would be able to hear me.”

Starsky and Hutch looked at each other and then turned back to Mr. Johnson. “Wait here a minute, Mr. Johnson. Starsk, I need to talk to you. Outside.” He pulled Starsky by the arm and they went out into the hallway.

“Starsk, we should book this guy right now. He just described the condition of the woman’s body!”

“And the dog’s,” Starsky added helpfully.

“Yeah.”

Just then, Dobey was making his way down the hallway towards them. They told him about the suspect’s description of the murder scene.

“Okay, you two try to keep him talking until we hear back from R&I. Who knows how much else he’ll spill in the meantime. Sounds like he’s some kind of crackpot who goes crazy at the full moon.”

“But Cap’n, there isn’t a full moon this week,” Starsky pointed out in an effort to be helpful.

“Then he’s yanking our chains because it’s Halloween, Starsky!” Dobey bellowed. “Now go on, you two, get back in there!”

They went back into the interrogation room, Starsky doing a little jaunt, Hutch following reluctantly. Starsky nodded to Mr. Johnson to continue.

“Now, I might have had an overactive imagination, I admit. But that feeling of something creeping up behind me, chasing me? I never could shake that feeling. And even though a cold cellar is called that because, well, it’s _cold_, I swear it always felt even colder than it should have.”

“I understand what you’re describing, Mr. Johnson,” Hutch interrupted, trying to keep Johnson interested and talking. "My grandfather had a farm, too. He taught me how to drive a tractor. There was a cold cellar in his house where he would store...”

Mr. Johnson glared at Hutch as if incensed by his interruption and Hutch quickly clamped his mouth shut. Their suspect continued, “For years I ran through that basement to the top of the stairs, my lungs expelling air faster than I could breathe it in. Sometimes I even looked back when I reached the top, to reassure myself there weren’t no one behind me. And there never was. Until that last day.

It was like entering another dimension, going to the other end of that basement and down into the cold cellar. That’s what it felt like to me, anyway. But no one else seemed to feel that way. Not my mother, not my father, not my younger sisters. They went down there alone many times and I swear I never saw none of them run back upstairs, out of breath, looking fearfully behind them. I was the only one who did that.

But I don’t think anyone ever noticed me doing it, which was the funny thing. And even though my mother avoided the bathroom (not even to clean it and she cleaned everything), I really do think it was because she didn’t like the rust.

Some years later, I watched a Twilight Zone episode on an old black and white TV, about a little girl who was lost. Only she wasn’t lost in her neighborhood or nothing, she was lost in her own house. One day, she just upped and walked through an invisible opening in her bedroom wall that led to another dimension. Her parents could hear her crying out for them and whimpering, but they couldn’t see her or know where she was.

But that dimension thing? Our cold cellar was different, somehow. It felt like another dimension alright, but not like the Twilight Zone kind. That one was like being in outer space with fog all around. But in our cold cellar, that other dimension felt like a doorway to someplace cold and evil. A place you would normally expect to be hot, if you get my drift.

Anyway, that’s when I finally saw him. I was shivering timbers as I reached around in the blackness for the string and pulled it. And there he was on the floor, stark naked, eating all the potatoes that my daddy and his man, Bill had harvested the week before.

If I had walked another two inches in the dark, I would have tripped over his feet. That is, if you could call them feet.

There was a pile of potato peelings beside him and potato juice was dripping all down his chin. And I could see that the potatoes were rotten, because they were covered all over in big black splotches and the flesh was a otherworldly phosphorescent green. He was sittin' there on the cold dirt floor, grinnin' and chortlin' and havin' a grand old time.”

Hutch started to say something to Starsky, but Johnson interrupted them by raising his voice and continuing the story in a forceful tone, his voice growing louder with each new revelation.

“The potatoes were raw. He was eating rotten, raw, green potatoes like they was the greatest thing since Wonder bread. Did you know that potatoes are poisonous if eaten raw? AND EVEN MORE POISONOUS IF EATEN GREEN? YOU CAN'T EVEN EAT COOKED GREEN ONES WITHOUT GETTIN' SICK!"

Then, calmer, “I told you there was a man in our basement, but that’s not exactly true. He may have looked like a man, but I’ve never before or since seen a man with jet black eyes, translucent white skin, and long, razor-sharp teeth and claws, the kind of teeth and claws that could be perfectly used to...never mind what. But any man who enjoyed eating rotten, green tubers woulda keeled over dead from the toxin and wouldn’t be able to run after you. So you can guess what he was, I don’t need to spell it out.

Anyway, as you can imagine, I tore out of there like a bat out of you-know-where. I know that’s a figure of speech, but in this case I mean it literally. If you don’t understand by now what I mean, then I don’t know what more I can tell you.

I ran as fast as I could towards the stairs, towards where my mother was preparing supper in the kitchen. But this time, just like in my dream, it seemed to take forever to reach the playroom and the safety beyond, because that end kept receding and receding the farther I ran towards it. But I know I wasn’t dreaming this time, because just then, my mother called out to ask what was taking me so long as she needed to get supper started.

That’s when I was finally able to reach the playroom and run up the stairs. I didn’t stop to look behind me, but I took a chance when I got to the top. And guess what? There was no one there. Just like all the other times.

My mother was none too pleased that I had returned without any potatoes, so she told me to go back downstairs and get them. At first, I protested, but then my daddy appeared and threatened to whup me, so back downstairs I went (if more slowly than I had come up). By the time I reached the bottom, I had convinced myself it was all a dream. Maybe I had fallen asleep when I was down there.

That is, until I got to the playroom. As I headed towards the main room, I stopped cold in my tracks. For right outside the playroom was a humongous pile of rotted, half-eaten green potatoes. Like HUNDREDS of them. Maybe even THOUSANDS. And I know I wasn’t dreaming and I know I wasn’t sleepwalking because it was broad daylight outside.

Well, that’s where my story ends. My parents never did find out what happened to me. Because you see, I ran back up those stairs, out the door to the backyard and kept on going. I didn’t stop until I got to the bus station in town, and after that, I didn’t stop until I got to the next state. I was only 15 years old, but I knew I could never go back home. I did the best I could. I tried, I really did.

It’s been over 20 years since I’ve eaten a potato. I won’t even touch a McDonald’s french fry, although I’m told they’re quite tasty. And I live on the topmost floor of a 10-story apartment building for a goddamn reason. And I ain’t never go down in that building’s basement!”

Just as Johnson finished his story, there was a sudden knock on the interrogation room door. Hutch got up, walked over to the door, opened it, and peered out into the hallway.

“Mr. Johnson’s story checked out, Hutch,” said Dobey. “He hasn’t been seen in Homestead, Idaho since 1957, and he was at the grocery store yesterday morning when Mrs. Henderson was killed, just like he said he was.”

They told him he was free to go.

=====

Starsky and Hutch took the elevator down to the basement of the apartment building and walked down the dimly lit hallway.

“The forensics team already went over this place with a fine tooth-comb. What else are you expecting to find, Starsk?”

Hutch flicked on the light to the laundry room where the mutilated bodies had been found, but the room was empty. They had to lift their legs to climb over the yellow police tape that was stretched taut across the laundry room doorway.

“What if his story was true, Hutch? What if the same, whatever it was, that almost got him when he was a kid, what if it got Mrs. Henderson and the dog? No man coulda done that, Hutch, you know that. We BOTH know that.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Starsk! It had to have been some kind of animal, like a bear or something (_in the basement?_) or, or...”

“Or what? How would a bear get in the basement, huh?”

“I don’t know, the same way the dog did?”

They both looked at each other.

“Hey, is it cold down here or is it just me?” Starsky asked.

Hutch looked at his own arm and noticed goosebumps up and down. Come to think of it, it DID feel really chilly down here. He didn’t remember noticing that this morning when the dog was found.

Hutch turned off the light as they both stepped back over the yellow police tape and headed for the elevator. They got in, but just as the doors were about to close shut, Hutch put his hand out to stop them.

“Hold on a minute, Starsk, I want to check something out.”

Hutch got out of the elevator, walked down the hallway, turned on the laundry room light, and stepped gingerly over the yellow tape. Then he opened the lid of each of the five washing machines and peered down into each one. They were all empty.

He then knelt down and opened the first dryer door. Nothing. Then he opened the second, third, fourth. As he approached the door of the fifth dryer, he tilted his head slightly, as if trying to figure something out.

There was an “Out of Order” sign taped to the dryer door. It was written in jet black ink in what looked like the handwriting of an old arthritic. Hutch thought it seemed vaguely menacing. He peered beside the dryer and noticed a curious pile of what looked like potato peelings.

He hesitated, unsure what to do. Then he said to himself, “Hutchinson, you’re being ridiculous, it’s just a dryer,” and he opened the dryer door. As he did, hundreds of potatoes, peeled, half-eaten, and rotted, tumbled noisily out in a great heap onto the floor.

“Holy fuck!” Hutch swore, then turned tail and ran as fast as he could back towards the elevator, praying to God that Starsky hadn’t left him down there alone.

In his haste, he barged right through the yellow police tape, ripping it off.

Starsky was standing in the elevator, still holding the doors open, looking as impatient as ever. “Hey, let’s go, will ya? This place gives me the creeps!”

“Yeah, yeah, press the button. Hurry up!”

Starsky turned towards Hutch as the elevator doors closed and it began to ascend. He grasped Hutch’s forearm. “Hey, whatsa matter Blondie, you look like you seen a ghost!”

“Ah...” Hutch began, trying to figure out how to explain what he’d just seen. “Let’s just say that the next time we go to a steak place for dinner, I won’t be ordering any Irish plums.”

=====================

Epilogue

Hutch lay naked in sleeping Starsky's arms, holding him tight and pressing his head against Starsky's chest hair. As Starsky's chest rose and fell with each breath, Hutch closed his eyes and imagined they were on a boat bobbing gently on the sea, where they would be about as far from any basement as they could get. Listening to the sound of the wind howling outside, rattling the sides of the greenhouse, he thought about their night together and smiled, while trying hard not to think about their day.

He hoped the light wouldn't wake Starsky.

*****

He had asked Starsky if he wanted a trick or a treat, and Starsky had replied "treat," not quite knowing what Hutch was planning. Hutch had told him to close his eyes, to which Starsky complied eagerly. Hutch then grabbed the lube and spread it over his cock as it got harder. Then he put some on his finger and gently probed Starsky's opening with it, inserting the finger and moving it in and out slowly and carefully as Starsky began to moan.

When he was ready, Hutch inserted his cock into Starsky and gently pushed in, holding onto Starsky's shoulder with his hand for leverage. When he was fully inside, he pressed his body against Starsky's and held him tightly, rocking slowly back and forth.

After a few minutes, he located the area near Starsky's prostate gland, making his partner moan even more. It didn't take long for both of them to come.

When they were done, Starsky had turned onto his back, sleepy and content, and Hutch leaned over and kissed him. "Happy Halloween, buddy. I love you." 

"Love you, too," Starsky murmured and promptly fell asleep.

Hutch then got up and went into the bathroom to clean himself off. When he got back into bed, he lay there for a moment, feeling vaguely unsettled. He got up again, padded softly across the room, flicked on the bathroom light, and peered into the small room to reassure himself there was no one there. He left the light on. As he climbed back into the bed, he reached over and turned on the bedside lamp, too.

-The End-

**Author's Note:**

> Boo!  
.  
.  
.  
In case you're wondering what the hell an Irish plum is, it's from the Specialist (S2 Ep28) and refers to the baked potatoes that S&H order for dinner to accompany their steak. On the way out, Hutch remarks that he's full because he ate two Irish plums (meaning that he ate his own as well as Starsky's).


End file.
